Four Empty Coffins, One Terminal Diagnosis Chapter 03
Damian stepped forward and grabbed my suitcase. “We finally came back. Can’t we just live in peace from now on? Why do you have to leave right now?”
Adrian seized my wrist. His fingers clamped down hard enough to shatter bone. “Vivienne. Go back to your room. This ends now.”
Damian let go of the suitcase and shoved me backward.
“I was too rough earlier. I spaced—you’ve been through hell. Of course you’d snap. You can have your room back. We’ll build Lena a new princess suite.”
He paused. Then his tone shifted, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.
“So that’s it. Let it go now.”
Evelyn and Gideon had followed us out. The whole family stood in the doorway, boxing me in.
“Vivienne, don’t make a scene.” My mother sighed.
“Go back inside.” My father’s order was clipped.
In the chaos, a piece of paper slipped out of my suitcase and fluttered to the ground.
I bent down to grab it.
Adrian moved faster. He saw my cancer diagnosis. His face changed.
“You’re sick?” He stared at the paper. His voice went tight. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Evelyn and Gideon crowded in to look. Damian snatched the report from Adrian’s hand. He read it twice, his face draining of color.
“Vivienne… this is fake, right? You were fine yesterday. There’s no way—”
That’s when Serena’s voice drifted from deep in the hallway.
She was wrapped in a bathrobe, her finger still bandaged. Her eyes were swollen and red. “Vivienne, this is all my fault. I shouldn’t have taken Adrian from you. But no matter how much you hate me—you can’t joke about dying just to get even.”
She let out a choked sob, her voice trembling. “You’d fake cancer to make them suffer? Do you have any idea how much that would hurt them?”
Every pair of eyes shifted.
Gideon set the diagnosis down. The concern on his face cooled into suspicion.
Evelyn took a step back, disappointment pooling in her gaze.
Damian gripped that piece of paper like it was an insult.
Adrian stared at me. The last trace of warmth in his eyes died.
“Vivienne.” His voice was ice. “Three years, and this is what you’ve become? Faking an illness for sympathy?”
He flung the diagnosis onto the floor. “You think I don’t know damn well the Vale family keeps private physicians? You could’ve walked into any clinic and gotten some bullshit fake report. So let me spell this out—even if you were dying of cancer for real, I still wouldn’t marry you. Serena is my only wife.”
I was shoved backward. My shoulder slammed into the wall.
Damian stepped up and slapped me across the face. “You’re so bitter about us lying to you that you’d fake a disease to punish us? How did our family produce such a selfish, vicious snake? Apologize to Serena. Now.”
I collapsed to the floor. My ears were ringing. Then blood spilled from my mouth—a gruesome, shocking sight.
The hallway went dead silent. My parents and brother looked panicked. Adrian stood frozen, his face full of stunned disbelief.
That’s when Lena appeared. I don’t know when she slipped out of her room. She stood at the end of the corridor in her pajamas, watching the blood on the floor with open curiosity. Then she smiled.
“That’s not real blood! It’s props, like on TV! Mommy says some people pretend to be sick so other people feel sorry for them.”
Adrian’s face hardened instantly. He stepped back, his voice dripping with disgust. “You lied? You were manipulating us?”
Serena played her part. She tugged at his hand, all soft and placating. “Just drop it. Don’t be mad. It’s all my fault. If Vivienne really can’t stand having me around, then I’ll move out with Adrian.”
“It’s just hard on the little one—she’s barely three, and she’s already been dragged all over the place because of us…”
Her voice broke. Adrian pulled her into his arms. “That won’t happen. I’ll protect you and Lena. No one’s going to hurt you.”
Evelyn was shaking with rage. She yanked me up by the arm. “Serena, Adrian—you’re not going anywhere! I’m dealing with this disgrace of a daughter today!”
“We spoiled you rotten.” Damian’s voice was trembling, but not from heartache. From fury. “And now you’re spitting fake blood to trick us. You’re going to learn a lesson tonight. Get on your knees.”
He pointed at the stone floor in the center of the hallway.
“You stay there until you admit what you did. Until you apologize to Serena. Then you can get up.”
They forced me down. The sound of my knees cracking against the marble was loud. Sharp. Clear.
Evelyn and Gideon left. Adrian turned his back on me, Serena and Lena wrapped in his arms. Lena peered over his shoulder, stealing one last look at me. There was no guilt in those little eyes. Only curiosity.
I knelt beneath the portraits of the Vale ancestors.
The faces in those frames—my grandfather, my great-grandfather, every family head who came before—stared down at me through the dim light.
Did they see?
Did they see the daughter of the Vale family, forced to her knees by her own blood, for no other crime than refusing to quietly hand over everything she had?
My mind drifted. Back to childhood. I once stumbled into a private family council meeting by accident and disrupted the proceedings. Evelyn grabbed a whip to teach me a lesson. Damian threw himself in front of me. He took every lash until his skin split open, and still he wouldn’t move.
He looked back at me and grinned.
“Don’t be scared. I’m got you.”
The light above me blurred.
I blacked out again.
